Reverse Cultural Shock

Last day in Japan starts early, packing all our belongings, leaving them in the apartment ready to go and heading toward Kiyomizu Dera. Being part of the “must see” either for tourists or for locals means one thing: hordes of people. It’s 8:45 and the place is packed. Policemen survey some steps and are vehemently forbidding people to take their picture. I wonder: is it because the sun is at such height in the sky that we don’t see the steps and could have an accident? We’ll find out later that somewhere in the temple there was a service and the picture would upset it.

Later in the afternoon when we were aloud to take the picture.

Red Gates and Grey Turtles

What is so special about Kyoto?

The old capital is imbued with history and lore...

It still has many pre-war buildings as it was not heavilly bombed during the second world war...

People are encouraged and rewarded to wear the traditional kimono (the buses and the temples offer a reduced rate)...

It has a harmonious mix of old and new ...

It has gardens and temples….lots and lots of gardens and temples...

Yakushima

What will this bright and beautiful day bring us? And the ones that come after this one?

A volcano.

And another one.

And there…another.

Shirakawago

“Ohayō gozaimasu! Good morning! We know you have two places in your tour bus, but we are three, and if someone from your group doesn’t come, could you take us?” We want to go to the historic village of Shirakawa-go and this company has the best schedule for our time frame. Alas, everyone comes, so seconds before departure time, the guide (and the driver!) come to us, apologize because they couldn’t take us, bow and leave. Well, we’ve tried!

From tunnel to tunnel to the next mountain.

Nikko

Wake up!

Cameras, spare batteries, some food, water, tickets…let’s go! Today we are going to visit Nikko and we want to beat the crowds. That’s why we leave so early and in such a hurry.

We admire the television tower against the dawn, that’s the only view that we are going to have of it. We enter the metro system and we have to find our way to the train station. Ioan is not feeling very well, sleeping on the floor will do that to someone who is not used to it. Then we wait in line to board the train. Ooops, not ours, better get out of the way. Two more minutes and our shinkansen stops exactly to the sign. We have less then an hour to eat. In Utsunomiya we change the trains and 40 minutes later we arrive in Nikko.

Hiraizumi

Another early morning for us, we wake up before the 5 am alarm. Still on jet-lag. We could waste time in the room, our train is later in the day, or we could go to the market and enjoy the show. Quietly we gather our belongings and tip-toe out of the hotel.

No, Ioan does not have a flower in his hair! It is a chrysanthemum from a vase that sits on the table hidden almost completly by him, but you can see it in the mirror. We are surrounded by those shapeless blue or red one size fits all slippery slippers (you can fall to your death if you're trying to climb those stairs wearing them) and if there is a large group, there are more in the bin. You can see how many people are in the hotel by counting the pairs of shoes in the cubby.

The sun is up, but the streets are deserted, with the exception of the dog-owners. Because everyone else is at the market buying or eating sea food. We look out-of-place, with our backpacks, still we’re oggling at the variety and the abundance, not in just one place, but repeated along the street.

Good bye Car, Hello Train

Time to pack and go! The best method to be sure I’m not forgetting anything is to clean. And being an ambassador of Romania and USA, I leave everything almost as I found them. The result is I have all my possessions and Mihai gets a good review on airbnb.

Through the Ainu Land (part 2)

While at home we were discussing what to visit in Hokkaido. Mihai wanted Shiretoko, I wasn’t too keen, because I understood it was just wilderness, something that you have to really like to stay for a few days at least to experience it. There were several things to do beside hiking Mount Rausu and that included visiting the Five Lakes. We could have squeezed in yesterday a hike to those lakes, but we were tired and considered we would have the time today. Late in the night Mihai checked the weather report and found that today is the only beautiful day. We have to choose: do we walk around on a planked pathway in and around five flat lakes or do we climb Kurodake (peak Kuro)? And the answer is….

In the right lower corner you can see a red and white striped pole and a little bit above a down-pointing arrow. The first one marks the height of the snow and the other one the driving lane. During the night time its leds turn on to mark its presence.

Through the Ainu Land (part 1)

I don’t remember exactly when I’ve heard for the first time about Ainu people, but I liked them instantly. Something about being oppressed. On the verge of disappearing.

It is a beautiful sunny, though cold morning. Too early for the tourists to be up and around. Early even for the Japanese people. We visit again the town, take some pictures at the lake, then in the village. Everything is closed, but there is a gay feeling.

Entrance of the village

Our Country

Welcome to my country! Bun venit! (boon veh-NEAT)

What happened? Did I blink and miss it? When did six weeks pass? Though we lived every day, time flew, moving from house to house, from tables laden with homemade traditional food to another one, from conversation to discussion and so forth.

Every day was a celebration!

Istanbul

What?

You thought that if we bought tickets to go home, we’re really going? And skip this beautiful city? No, no, no, no... too many ties to my country’s and the world’s history. Nope, we had to visit, even if is just for four days.

Leaving the warm Egypt, we prepared for a thermic shock: Istanbul is with ten degrees latitude North of Cairo that translates in a difference of almost 40 degrees Fahrenheit in temperature. We layered all our clothes and hoped for the best.

These ladies are not playing, they're cleaning!

The Turning Point

The restaurant of the cruise is empty, besides Maria and myself—just the waiters changing the linens on the tables. Judging from their voices and gestures, they’re not too happy about a new batch of tourists, each with their whims and their steam blowing. I didn’t wake up on the wrong side of the bed—on the contrary, I was happy to escape the droning and the pervading fumes of the neighboring boat’s engine—just that I don’t feel inclined to find excuses: for the miserable western food (the juice, the milk are watered down, the desserts seem emptied from a can, and everything else is weird tasting—it’s not easy to follow a recipe if you don’t know what the result is supposed to look and taste!), for the forced jokes of the waiters trying to make us smile and have a “good time”, for the sky-high prices of everything not included in the service (a British woman tried in vain to convince the manager that 15 euros for a glass of juice is not a normal price!), for everything. I’m tired and the day has just started.

Market delivery

Kali mera Elada!

Present time (November 30th, 2012):

Duty— You should have written every day!
The writer— I couldn’t, the writing would have been dry, just a bunch of facts, what we did, like a check-off list, no one would have been interested.
The child— Can we play now?
Duty— Now you have to write after almost two months; what would you remember now?
The writer—I’ll write, just leave me alone, don’t carry me to all these new places, give me some time!
The child—I want a roiboos tea!
Duty—We don’t have time! And plus, these new places have to be seen, they are a must, remember that you always wanted to see them!
The writer—OK, let’s see them, but then I won’t write!
The child—And I want to watch a movie!
Duty— You have to write! People are waiting for your blogs!
The writer— Are you kidding me? They live their lives, we’re just entertainment for them, if there is no blog to be read, they just go and find something else!
The child—Look at me! Look at me!
Duty—Then write for us!
The writer—I need peace, and time! Leave me alone, to find my muse, to process those feelings, to make them less personal, to bring a unified image of how it was there, and not the whole material. It was one thing to present Asia, where it was a first contact with a different culture, and another to show Europe. I grew up here, I can tell details, but then I have to explain them, and you don’t give me time!
The child—Ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong! Let’s escape!
Duty and the writer—WE CAN’T! WE HAVE TO WRITE THE BLOG!

Two months ago and forward.

Kali mera, Elada! (kah-lee mair-ah) Good morning, Greece!

Aswan

“Wait there on the chairs!” says the security man from the airport. We sit for almost an hour, other tourists sharing the same fate. It is not because he has something else to do, he just talks with his colleagues, but I think this is a new policy (at least for me), they control things better in groups. We fly to Cairo to change the airplane (actually, it is the same one, with the same stewardesses, and almost the same passengers) so we could go to Aswan.

Again I have to face my fears, my own prejudices. This is a time of unrest, of social change, of political games. It is a Muslim country with 5-10% of Coptic Christians. Don’t we invite trouble just by being here? The number of tourists coming in is down, aren’t we a source to be ripped off? Are they really going to take us to the hotel or somewhere else? In whom to trust?

Outside the airport there are several taxi drivers, waiting for a client. Between them is Mr. Samir, who has in the middle of his forehead a crest, the consequence of many prayers (the Muslims pray by touching their forehead to the ground). That little voice in my head says “Him, you can trust him! No, no, no, no, I take it back. What if he is a fanatic?”

 But I don’t listen it anymore, Mr. Samir is talking politely with Mihai and he is inviting us in his seven seat car, a Peugeot from 1974. It is a long drive and from time to time he tells us that, somewhere in the darkness, we’re passing the High Dam, or the Philae Temple. We arrive at our hotel,

My Birthday

To me, my birthday felt like any other day. Not very special. Maybe without the excitement of having all your best friends over, playing your favorite games together, getting a big chocolate cake, and unwrapping lots of presents. It isn't the day you look forward to for a full month. Sadly most of the above aren't possible here in Egypt. Friends are back at school in America or Romania, therefore we can't play all those games together, big chocolate cakes aren't found easily in Egypt, and traveling with as few things as possible means our bags don't have room for a present. Unless its a iPod/iPhone/iPad mini. But I already have an iPod so I don't need another one.
When everyone wakes up one by one, they tell me "Happy Birthday!" Instead of cake I got meringues. I gladly accepted them. While going down to my regular breakfast, I made a little rhyme: "Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me. I am 103, without the zero in between."

Good morning and Happy Birthday! here is your present...

Agony and Ecstasy

We board the flight to Milano. People are talking, the stewardesses are nowhere to be seen, while a voice says in Italian “to click the seat belt as it is shown”. It makes me laugh out loud, causing some heads to turn around like, “What’s so funny?” By the time they repeat the message in English (with a heavy Italian accent), the stewardesses are there to do their duty. After we take off, I think we have five minutes at the cruising height and then we start the descent, with a searing pain in my ears and hysterical cries from small children (why do they have to go down so quickly, not giving us time to equalize?)

And then, buon giorno Ee-tahl-eeah! Good day, Italy!

We have three weeks in Italy, and the plan is to visit Milano (only because the airplane takes us there), then we go to Turin, to see our pen pals Federica and Maria Rosa. From there to Florence for four nights, Venice one night, Napoli and surrounding area for six nights, finishing in Rome with five nights.

This is a touring marathon, a masochistic demonstration of how much one can absorb without getting sick of it.

The Boxer

Scrambled Foxtrot (2)

Cristina and I have been BFFs since 5th grade. No matter how much time passes from the last meeting, we talk and work together like we saw each other just yesterday. She takes the children fishing (Mihai, Ileana, and I are not fans) and then she shows them how to clean them.

Ready to eat grilled fish, hand caught crabs, tomato salad with feta cheese and many other goodies!

Scrambled Foxtrot

 Athens greets us with sunshine and social unrest. The bus doesn’t go all the way, the subway doesn’t stop at the Syntagma station, the one close to Parliament. We arrive at Cristina and Dan’s house safe and sound. Six years is a long time, but it didn’t change a thing. They spoil us with freshly squeezed orange juice (not all oranges are equal to this task, they have to be small, soft, and with a shiny peel), dried figs from their garden, olives from their trees. Our children don’t remember meeting (they were less than 5 years old) but get together like all teenagers do. They live in a very small apartment, next to a church that rings its bells from 7:30 am. If we all get in the kitchen there is barely room for standing, so we go out and eat feta salad (feta cheese with tomatoes and flooded with virgin olive oil), kokoritzi (a dish made from sheep intestines), sausages and meat patties. 

Catalunya

Hola! Hello!

"Who wants to get out?" asks Mihai.

"No, thank you! You said we were going to rest and that’s what we intend to do!"

We’re in Estartit, a wonderful village by the Mediterranean Sea, with a wonderful beach and wonderful eateries, and all we want to do is to be inside the walls of our apartment, even if we don’t have internet. I need to put a little bit of space around memories. Europe is intensive, with so many things to see, I need time to filter my emotions and impressions, to write them down and I don’t want to go and make new ones.

We could have chosen any location close to Barcelona, but we came here because we were invited by Isma (Ease-ma). We’ve met in Thailand, us, leaving Bottle Beach, he, going to the doctor for an infected leg (diving with unprotected wounds would do that to you). Our car started speeding up when we realized we didn’t give him our card, he couldn’t run, so we threw it on the sand and that was our last image of him. He liked our page on Facebook and we exchanged a few messages.

He visits our apartment one afternoon and we talk about wind surfing, tourists, business, independence. Driving through Catalunya we read graffitti inscriptions asking for independence. The signs are first in Catalana, then Spanish, then English, people speak Catalana, they teach it in school. I ask why do they want independence from Spain? Not everybody wants it, but it seems it is about money and who is using them (Spain or Catalunya). Until they reach a majority, they are part of Spain.

A Taste of Spain

The story might seem fairy tale material, but it is not. As we left Bottle Beach, we got on a little boat for half an hour. During the trip, Ileana got to talk with a nice young fellow. Then we parted ways. Waiting for departure in the back of a truck, I asked my daughter what they talked about. "Our trip", "He's from the most beautiful Spanish village and he works in the best restaurant in the world". "Let's go there!" I said and my daughter readily agreed. As our truck was now departing, I waived at Isma and I threw a contact card towards him. In the dust behind us we saw him limping with his injured foot, retrieve the card and waive back at us.

The season is over in L'Estartit